Whether you took a break from Google Docs for the summer to relax in the sun or your school just moved over to Google Apps and you’re learning more about Google Docs, we’ve got some fun additions that we think you’ll enjoy.

New videosIf you’re new to Google Docs or don’t use it very often, the new Google Docs YouTube channel is a good place to start. These videos give a high level overview and steps to get started. And since each video is focused on one feature, its easy to only learn about the ones that matter most to you.

Improved sharingIf you’re a long time user of Google Docs, chances are that you share your documents with classmates. We recently made sharing easier while giving you more control. You can see who has access to your document at a glance and the new cleaner, simpler interface let’s you see who has access, manage access and invite others all in one place.

Documents

If you work on documents with friends in real-time, you’ll appreciate collaborative highlighting in documents. You can now see the text that other editors are highlighting as they select it. So if someone is about to delete something on your screen or drag text somewhere else, you’ll see them highlight that text before anything changes.

We’ve also added more page size options to documents, helping you get the exact format required for your classes.

Lastly, if you have a pdf or image file that you want to edit it in Google Docs, you now can. We added optical character recognition (OCR) to Google Docs letting you convert images with text directly into a Google document.

Spreadsheets

It can be embarrassing to share a file that has spelling mistakes. Using the same technology that is in documents, we’ve added spell check in spreadsheets this summer. Now you can share spreadsheets without fear.

Finally, with the power of the cloud, you have access to and can share your files from basically any device without needing to print out anything. That said, we understand that there are occasions when you still need to print, such as turning in an assignment. That’s why we’re excited about two new features for printing: selection printing and gridless printing. These two new options allow you to not only customize your printouts, but also save ink in the process.

6 comments
:

I don't understand so much the focus on google docs for research / science. If you want to make a case, you need to write an online LaTeX editor. It might have the usual Google doc engine as front-end perhaps (just like LyX does), but it should have LaTeX as back-end.

That would really mean a worthwhile contribution to the scientific community.

Yes, I totally agreee with you. Students NEED LaTEX to use google docs in their shool work. When it was available, I used to write all of the formulas in LaTEX. I managed to take nice notes in class and to share them. Now, it's impossible!